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Hal
Skeptic Friend
USA
302 Posts |
 Posted - 10/27/2011 : 11:44:42 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by flanagan1000
Whats wrong with the babylon mythology?
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Apart from being... mythical?
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| Edited by - Hal on 10/27/2011 11:48:52 |
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alienist
Skeptic Friend
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2011 : 13:41:38 [Permalink]
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| wow, Flan, you got a long message from cuneiformist and all you focus on is the part about Babylon mythology. Why not address what he says about bloodlines. Do you have proof from anyone else about monarchs and presidents being descended from Egyptian pharoahs? Or are you just trolling? |
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well! - Joe Ancis |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2011 : 14:28:41 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by flanagan1000
Whats wrong with the babylon mythology? |
The guy talking at ca. 9:20 or so says that the goddess Diana (I assume Roman moon goddess) was really another name for the Babylonian goddess Queen Semiramis. Now, data about anyone named "Semiramis" in ancient Mesopotamia is difficult. However, there is certainly wasn't any sort of cult to a goddess by that name (keeping in mind that Semiramis is a Greek rendering of an Akkadian name). Later writers mention of a person Semiramis and some legends about her suggest that she was a goddess, but again there never was any active cult to someone by that name.
Some scholars have tried to connect the name to an Assyrian queen-- and we can speculate that she was someone of some influence whose legend spread such that centuries later people told of her cult. But that's speculation, and still does nothing to address that fact that there's no actual worship of a goddess.
Also: the video makes all sorts of statements (often just in text; not spoken) that are-- to me-- totally nuts. Like "The Goddess Diana Was also Known as 'Queen Semeramis'" (9:29). Really??! Where did they get that? And then this-- "The Statue of Liberty is actually 'Queen Semeramis' of Ancient Babylonia" (9:36). Uh....  . That's just nuts.
You do some digging into a lot of this, and a lot of it comes down to a pamphlet written by a an anti-Catholic Scottish minister named Alexander Hislop (1807-1865). This pamphlet "The Two Babylons" is full on crap-- he's trying to link the Catholic church to ancient Babylonian religion, but doing so before the Akkadian language had been deciphered and before 90% of actual textual and archaeological remains from ancient Mesopotamia had been recovered.
It would be like me trying to link the Republican Party to some cannibalistic Mayan cult having no actual knowledge of how to read Mayan, and only the most tenuous grasp of Mayan history or culture. Why on earth would anyone accept my theories as true?!?
Flanagan1000, you are subscribing to conspiracy theories dreamt up by people who have no idea what they're talking about, and buying it no questions asked. I sincerely hope that you don't give money to these charlatans. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 10/27/2011 : 17:11:08 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by alienist
wow, Flan, you got a long message from cuneiformist and all you focus on is the part about Babylon mythology. Why not address what he says about bloodlines. Do you have proof from anyone else about monarchs and presidents being descended from Egyptian pharoahs? Or are you just trolling? |
Yeah, alienist, the more I think about it, the more I feel it's insulting that after actually watching this film and addressing this point, the first reply I get concerns the least important observation I made.
I'm also shocked that anyone with half a brain-- no, with a quarter of a brain-- could buy into the line that Egptian pharaohs left Egypt and became rulers in Europe. Let's leave aside the fanciful aspects of this, like the whole "extra-dimensional being" part. And let's leave aside the problematic aspect of treating Egyptian kingship as some sort of static, monolithic institution that showed no change or dynamism throughout its history (until it was time to up and move to Europe).
Let's just put this up to the smell test and see if it makes any sense. Could Egyptian pharaohs have just picked up and moved to Europe? Could they have gone there and established a ruling family, the branches of which controlled the entire continent?
Uh. Well... unfortunately, the creators of this video don't provide much information about this theory. Indeed, who went? When did they go? Why did they go? And why Europe and not, say, Ethiopia? Or Mesopotamia? Or Libya? But let's leave that aside (we're cutting these guys a lot of slack!) and focus on Europe. We still want to know who went, and when.
Indeed, the video asks us: "Do you know what happened to the pharaohs?" (1:26). It curiously says that they were a "global power" and that should already clue us in to the fact that these people don't know what they're talking about. Egyptologists might debate at what point Egyptian power was at its peak, but whatever point that was could, by no definition be considered "global". If we can trust Wikipedia (and in this case, I think it's fairly accurate), the maximum extent of Egypt's power isn't all that impressive. It's a minor point, so we can move on-- noting, though, that there's a red flag in this presentation.
So what do they bring up next? They ask: "but then what, did they just disappear?" (1:36). This is supposed to make people think-- or rather, it's supposed to prey on the (understandable) genuine ignorance on the part of most as to what happened to ancient Egypt. But just as the viewer is thinking "huh-- what did happen?!?", these people offer an answer: "They migrated, from Egypt to Rome" (1:41).
At this point, the gullible person-- the one who feels comfortable forking over money to these hucksters and sort of getting off on thinking that they're privy to deep secrets-- they think "oh wow-- I didn't know that!" The rest of us, on the other hand, think, "what the hell?!?" and do some searching and reading. And through some searching, it's easy to find that the last Egyptian pharaoh lost in a battle against the Persians, was carried off to Susa, and executed. Granted, a lot of our knowledge in this regard is from later sources, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's not true, and indeed, there is some history of those rulers of the Iranian plateau carting off conquered rulers where they eventually died.
The video mentions "pharaohs" in the plural, but it's not like there were lots running around at any given time. You're pharaoh until you're dead, and then there's a new one. So it's hard to understand what sort of scenario they're imagining. One explanation is that it wasn't really pharaoh who went to Europe, just members of his family. But if we grant that, does it help their case any?
Not really.
One big problem is that we don't have much evidence of Egypt in Europe at any point. Egyptian rulers, in case you didn't know, were famous for building huge monuments out of stone. You know-- temples and stuff. With a distinctive iconography and writing system. So here's a question: If Egyptian rulers were in Europe, where the hell is all the evidence?!?
Let's also go back to the smell test: there's some debate to the "race" of the ancient Egyptians. Wherever you come on that debate, it's clear that they weren't a fair-skinned, blue-eyed bunch. Have a look at tomb paintings. There should be little doubt that Egyptians had a dark complexion and dark hair. Don't you think that at some point, this slight difference might have been noted?? Look through Medieval art. Where are the Egyptian-looking rulers?
Towards the end of the video, they used that morphing technology to suggest that George W. Bush, Prince Charles, George H. W. Bush, and the Queen all look so alike that they must all be related (6:30). Leaving aside for the moment the fact that George H. W. Bush is actually related to George W. Bush, and Queen Elizabeth is actually related to Prince Charles-- how much success would they have trying to morph Bush with an Egyptian? (Here's a guess: not much.)
I could go on, but I think I've offered enough that if you actually believed this, you'd have material to address and defend your position. And if you don't buy into it, we could hope that you at least have the integrity to admit as much. |
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The Arrivals/Wake Up Project
